x800xt All In wonder question

[Bushman5]

Ok well id like to watch basic cable on my nice computer.

My question is how good is the viewing quality of a x800xt all in wonder. im thinking of getting 1 but the picture quality troubles me. also are their any dislikes people have found that they reccomend getting a seperate tv card over the combo

 

[xtknight]

I don't know about the X800XT AIW but I've used a regular Radeon AIW 32MB SDR AGP. Quality was very good as I remember it. Better than my old TV Wonder VE. About comparable to my current ATI TV Wonder USB 2.0. But not quite the quality of Theater 550 chip cards or the PVR-150.

 

[rbV5]

The AIW may require a signal booster to get a good clean picture even if you have a fairly strong signal.

I've used AIW cards, and software/hardware TV cards. There are trade-offs, but with the X800+ versions, there are less so than previous models with VGA+ DVI support.

The AIW has more flexible codec support and excellent PQ, with excellent hardware filtering on analog captures. It also uses few resources to "watch" live TV, even compared to my hardware cards.

The software TV cards offer flexibility for moving from rig to rig, or allowing a GPU change without losing your tuner, but offer nothing over the AIW for features, quality or CPU utilization.

The hardware TV cards offer better PVR duties(in addition to the same option of changing PC/GPU as software cards) when paired with appropriate software, particularly background recording, which IMO is the biggest feature advantage over AIW (along with the much better EPG used with most quality PVR softwares).

 

[Bushman5]

so do you reccomend buying it or just buya normal x800xt and a goodtv card

 

[rbV5]

Originally posted by: Bushman5
so do you reccomend buying it or just buya normal x800xt and a goodtv card

Yes..LOL.

It all depends, you (I) could make a good case either way. There are reams of posts about installation issues with AIW, I've had few issues myself, but you can't discount the fact that there are users that have issues installing AIW cards. The X800+ AIW cards are a small premium over the regular cards, and a combo can't touch them for value/ease of use/feature set "if" you use the features (IMO) Its also good for a PC lacking PCI slots, its a negative when you only want to change the GPU, as you lose the tuner and everything with AIW unless you replace it with another AIW.

If you wanted a powerful PVR, I'd say go with MCE and a hardware TV card. Other softwares like BTV and SageTV make a very good hardware card/PVR solution as well.

I only updated to AIW cards myself in the past, however after AIW9700pro, I've gone on to a seperate TV card(s) solution as my needs have changed (HD/SD multiple tuner PVR is a must in my house these days)

I was very tempted by AIW 1800 XL however.......

 

[gsellis]

And I was too tempted by an X800XT AIW at $299. Installed without issues. I do not use the TV video as only a single connection in the office and on digital cable. It does give me a superior AV input to capture VHS (but not as good as a dedicated Canopus AV/DV mid to higher end BOB (break out box)). Plays COD2 well with most of the bells/whistles on.

 

[Bushman5]

all im conserned about is wathcing cable on my pc. How good does the picture quality compare to other top cards around 250 usd. i figure its bets to buy it because all i want is to view cable

 

[imported_Oderus]

I have the X800 XT AIW and I would say the picture quality is excellent. I'm running it on a 21" viewsonic CRT and it's quite impressive. I'm not a hard-core TV watcher on my PC but it's nice to watch something once in awhile and I like the ability to record anything and everything. My main dissapointment however is not with the card but with my cable provider. I have to buy another digital cable box so I can watch/record channels over 51. I like the ability to have the TV as my background and all windows are semi-transparent which is very cool. I was torn as you are about getting the AIW or getting a non-AIW. The price difference was minimal (60-70$) and although I had a hard time finding an ATI X800 XT non-AIW, I did find an X850 XT for 330$ (60$ less) CDN but that deal only lasted a couple of days and I had already bought my X800 XT AIW for 390$ CDN. I don't understand how people could have problems with the installation, it was a breeze and I can OC from 500/500 to 550/560 no problem at all with stock cooling. I can also play COD2 and HL2 at 1280x1024 4xAA 4xAF with all features turned on (DX9 as well) and it truly kicks ass, almost as fast as the 7800 GT. You will not be dissapointed.

 

[imported_Oderus]

I don't understand why people that do not have one are giving their opinions. It may be relevant if you had a previous version as the tuners are the same (Theatre 200) but really.

 

[Nirach]

I had a lot of trouble with my 9800AIW, the MC wouldn't work fully in version 8, and had significant problems in 9.3. I've not used one since, so I don't know what the things are like. Might be significantly better, but.. I don't know..